Page 23 of The Monster at the End of This Molt

Weld looked pained. "How is he?"

"He and Axel are doing well, and so are their kids."

"Didn't they have a second clutch?"

I nodded. "Already on their third molt. They have a little girl this time, Penelope."

"That's almost normal." Weld laughed.

"Axel got to name them this time. He's a huge fan ofThe Odyssey, so they also have Odysseus, Poseidon, and Aeolus."

"Nice." I could feel pride through our bond, and joy at our friend's happiness.

I waited until he took a giant bite of his peanut butter sandwich before saying, "I don't think you were wrong when you mated with him."

It took him a few moments to chew and swallow. He placed the sandwich back on his plate and met my gaze with a cool glare. "I was, though. I was young and stupid, and I thought I knew everything. I thought Alma was a silly old hag who didn't know what real strength was because she'd grown up here on Ignitas." His expression was somewhere between bitterness and remorse. "I deserved to be cast out, and instead, she asked me to become a teacher. She said my lessons had been harder than most, and she didn't want others to make the same mistakes."

"You're a bit of a legend at The Pavilion, it's true."

"I didn't want to be a legend. I wanted to be punished. I screwed up, Robin. I hurt Tuft, and I said things to Alma that no kobold should ever say to an elder." He shook his head. "I grew up thinking men were better than women, and here, we can even breed with other men. Our anatomy fits with the whole misogynistic ideology. I remember thinking, if that was true, then might must be right, too." He glanced down at his hands. "In my experience, my physical strength only made the others fear me, when they weren't laughing at me behind my back."

"Not here," I said. "Tim respects the hell out of you for all the work you've done on the tractor, not to mention your help with their harvests and your agricultural know-how." Every day I worked with Tim, he sang Weld's praises from one side of the village to the other.

"My Earth family were farmers." Weld chuckled. "I'd looked down on them, too, thinking I was so much better. I went to school to do what I thought was the furthest from agriculture."

"What did you study?"

"Finance, with a minor in history." He snorted. "Can you believe it? I studied fascism and still thought I could rewrite kobold history by pairing only the strongest kobold alphas and omegas together."

"You're no fascist."

"I was no better than any eugenics believer, and the two go hand-in-hand." He sighed. "It took your parents' courage to show me how wrong I was. I only wish they'd talked to the dragon before Tuft got pregnant."

He picked up his sandwich again, and I left him to his memories while I polished off the rest of my food. Great sex gave me an appetite.

Weld plated the brownies. He still looked wistful when he sat back down, and I couldn't let it go.

"I asked Tuft how he felt about it." I'd been so young when I first approached him. It hadn't been more than a year after Weld left, and I'd wanted to understand why the kobold I considered my sun no longer shone on my part of the world every day.

"He said he was grateful for the experience, and he wouldn't change a thing."

Weld scoffed. "What? How could he say that? Our eggs died!"

"Many eggs died," I reminded him. "Even fated mates lost whole clutches in the grotto. Coz and Grindl?—"

"Their third clutch lived, no thanks to me." He swore and pushed his plate away with half of his brownie still uneaten. "I'm not a good person, Robin. I never have been. If I'd stayed on Earth, I would have been the worst kind of person. I would have started a cult or something."

"You changed," I said. "Do I need to take you on a tour of what Ignitas would be without you?"

He frowned. "It would still be here, same as always."

"I'll do it. I'll take you on theIt's a Wonderful Lifetour, where I show you all the people's lives you've touched from here to The Grid and beyond."

He scoffed. "You don't even know all the places I've been."

"I do. Dragon bond, remember? I could feel you. Galen even gave me a map with the other planes on it, so I knew when you went to Earth, Osmium, and Crenolyn, too."

"Hmm." He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Tell me more."

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